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Canada’s First
Quantum said on Saturday that Kazakh mining group ENRC’s acquisition of
mining rights in Congo violated a tribunal order freezing the sale of a
contested mining project.

ENRC announced on
Friday that it agreed to buy a majority stake in Camrose Resources
Ltd., which through an off-shore company has secured a new permit to
take over the Kolwezi project after First Quantum put $750 million into
developing it.

Camrose is
controlled by Israeli investor, Dan Gertler, who has built up a wide
portfolio of interests in resource firms across Congo over the last 13
years.

First Quantum said
that a tribunal at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris
had issued an order the day before the ENRC announcement to prohibit
Congo “from taking any action to transfer or allow the transfer of the
Kolwezi tailings exploitation permit.”

“These
announcements (by ENRC) appear to indicate a clear contradiction of the
Tribunal’s orders,” said the statement from First Quantum, adding that
the company believes it has exclusive rights and a binding contract for
the project.

“(A)ny purported transfer of the tailings exploitation permit covering the Kolwezi Project is ineffective,” it added.

Officials from the ICC were not immediately available for comment.

First Quantum
sought international arbitration at the ICC in February after its
Kolwezi copper tailings project, KMT, was closed by Congo’s government
late last year following a protracted mining contracts review.

The company said on
Saturday a second order from the ICC prohibits Congo enforcing a local
court judgement that required First Quantum to pay $12 billion in
damages.

ENRC Ceo, Felix Vulis, said on Friday his company was not aware of any legal action regarding the deal.

“We have done a very, very good legal due diligence … We are in really good comfort,” he told Reuters by telephone.

“Everybody’s
putting the emphasis on arbitration, but we also have internal legal
proceedings in Congo, and arbitration does not overrule what the
Congolese court, a sovereign court, does,” Bene M’Poko, Congo’s
spokesman on the deal with ENRC and ambassador to South Africa, told
Reuters by telephone on Friday.

First Quantum said its frontier mining project, the biggest copper
producer in the country, had also been informed in a letter dated
August 5, that its production permit had been withdrawn, but said its
operations at the site were unaffected.